The English subtest of the ACT will include questions over usage/mechanics and rhetorical skills

The usage/mechanics questions will assess your knowledge of the following:

-commas

-semicolons

-colons

-hyphens

-apostrophes

-dashes

-question marks

-exclamation points

-quotation marks

-parentheses

-subject/verb agreement

-principal parts of verbs

-verbals (participles, gerunds, infinitives)

-pronouns

-sentence structure (sentence fragments, run-on sentences, coordinating and subordinating conjunctions, adjectives, adverbs, misplaced modifiers, dangling constructions)

- consistency in tense and voice within a sentence

-predication

-parallelism

-transitional words and phrases

The rhetorical skills questions on the test will assess your knowledge of the strategies used in the following kinds of writing:

-  description

-  narration

-  explanation of a process

-  classification and division

-  definition

-  comparison/contrast

-  cause and effect

-  persuasion

The rhetorical skills questions will also assess your knowledge of the following:

-organization (main idea, supporting materials, transitions, and openings/closings

-style (formal writing, informal writing, popular writing, elevated writing, esoteric writing)

-  - word choice (diction)

-  imagery and figurative language